Hi,
I'm new to knitting and am just on my first project - the scarf and have encountered a few problems!!

The edges on scarf seem a little loose, i don't mind for this project but in future am wondering if it's something i'm doing wrong? I asked a friend and she said you don't knit the first stitch of each row? I haven't read this anywhere else though so not sure if this is a good method?!

That happens, so you're not really doing anything wrong, you just need to learn a couple tricks to prevent it. One is slipping the first st, but that doesn't work for me; my sts wind up looser than just knitting them. So I knit or purl the first st, then pull the yarn a little, and work the next couple sts a little tighter. Pulling the yarn tugs up the extra from the end of the previous row (right under that first stitch), and seems to work for me.